


If you can show me sunlight, I can weather any rain

by I_Write_Midnight_Snacks (Pink_and_Purple_Daisies)



Series: We run together, they're my family (Platonic Soulmates AU) [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Batfamily (DCU) Feels, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Canon Temporary Character Death, Gen, Good Older Sibling Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Jason Todd Deserves Better, Jason Todd Steals the Batmobile Tires, Jason Todd and Damian Wayne Meet in the League of Assassins, Jason Todd is Robin, Jason Todd-centric, Mixed Canon, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Soulmates, Taking a shredder to canon and scaveging for parts, almost forgot that one, and by God is he going to get it, i'm here to fix that, jason's childhood wasn't great y'all, like this is jason todd guys we all know how it goes, no beta we die like jason todd, or at least he tries, playing fast and loose with the timeline, the MCD is canonical btw, the author is here to give him a hand, the batfam is bad at feelings but that's ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28770837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_and_Purple_Daisies/pseuds/I_Write_Midnight_Snacks
Summary: A shadow falls over him where he’s still working on a particularly annoying bolt, and if his hands are shaking a bit, that is neither here nor there.Then, a voice, low and gravelly and a bit choked. “What… what are you doing there, kid?”Jason scowls and answers before he can think, grip tightening on the tire iron. Just wait for the right moment and swing. “The fuck is it to you?”It hits him like a freight train. The mark across his left shoulderburns.Or:The batfam are platonic soulmates. It changes some things.
Relationships: Batfamily Members & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Everyone
Series: We run together, they're my family (Platonic Soulmates AU) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2109393
Comments: 55
Kudos: 534
Collections: Jason Todd Steals the Batmobile Tires





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [won't be alone again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25378309) by [AgeOfArtemis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgeOfArtemis/pseuds/AgeOfArtemis). 



> Me, 5 days ago: Ok so I'm just gonna write a couple of quick oneshots from different POVs, just to get this AU out of my system and focus on exams.  
> Me, now: So that was a fucking lie.
> 
> I'm in love with "won't be alone again" by AgeOfArtemis and it's given me such a taste for platonic soulmates batfam that I've been in a frenzy of writing for the past 4 days. I have at least 12K words written already but I'm gonna be spreading them out a bit because a 10K word first chapter felt too long. This was meant to be a oneshot, but obviously, that didn't work out.
> 
> Anyway, this is very quickly gonna reveal itself to be nothing but an excuse to facilitate slightly healthier communication in the batfam via soulmarks that share feelings between them. This version of the AU is a variation on the "first words" one, where once you meet and speak the words, the marks start sharing feelings in the form of sensations between the bonded, so you have an idea what the other person feels. It's normally triggered by proximity, but if you're experiencing something extremely strong it can sometimes get through regardless of distance, so you know that your soulmate is going through something and can be there for them. It's gonna come through in the story regardless, but I thought I'd explain anyway.
> 
> The first scene is entirely the fault of Iselsis, who got me hooked on the "Jason steals the batmobile tires" trope, and instead of having a few sentences on how they met I ended up with 2k words. That's just how this fic is going at this point, I'm coming to accept it.

Jason Todd first meets his first soulmate in Crime Alley.

Living on the streets, he kept alive by weighing risks and taking chances (also by rationing whatever he had very carefully). So when he sees that damn car, parked in the obscurity of Crime Alley’s darkened shadows, he has a choice to make.

It isn’t much of one.

He hasn’t eaten in a few days, and those tires - custom made and extremely expensive, even if nobody would believe him they came from the batmobile itself - could set him up with food for days. Weeks, if he rations very carefully, and maybe even a pair of boots for the coming winter. The ones he has are worn, and they wouldn’t do anything to keep him from freezing, and if he finds a used pair to buy, he might actually make it work, money-wise. Risk vs reward - whatever he faces if he gets caught is worth the potential for actual food. He kows how to take a beating, after all, and Batman isn’t in the business of killing kids, so he’ll be fine. Probably.

So he sets to work. The tires are obscenely rich - heavy and thick, with shiny, custom platings and fancy ass screws, as if personalized screws were a thing anyone needs. Still, it works out for him. He pockets those, knowing they’d probably bring in some extra pennies.

He rolls the first two tires away behind the dumpster, where he can hide them beneath trash bags and the cover cloth thrown halfway off the dumpster. He’ll have to go and find a cart later.

The third one is just as easy to get off, and he rolls it just to the side so he can get to work on the last one fast. He’s only a few bolts in when he hears it - a swish of cloth caught on air, the softest shifting of the alley gravel - and Jason curses himself. He’s facing away from the alley entrance, escape route cut off and visibility shot, with Gotham’s very own crime fighting enthusiast stalking at his back like a fucking creep.

Past Jason was a fucking idiot.

A shadow falls over him where he’s still working on a particularly annoying bolt, and if his hands are shaking a bit, that is neither here nor there.

Then, a voice, low and gravelly and a bit choked. “What… what are you doing there, kid?”

Jason scowls and answers before he can think, grip tightening on the tire iron. Just wait for the right moment and swing. “The fuck is it to you?”

It hits him like a freight train. The mark across his left shoulder _burns_.

He slaps a hand to the mark without thinking, lost for a few seconds in thought trying to process what just happened because what the-

Oh no.

Jason never had a soulmate before. He’d heard before, that some kids have soulbonds with their parents, but Jason hadn’t, and he wasn’t sure he bought that, anyway. He’d seen how badly bonds could turn out, seen it in so many couples around him that he had no intention to find his own, no faith it would be anything but disastrous.

He hadn’t expected it would be this bad (the universe did so enjoy fucking him over, though, he should have known).

Batman is silent, still at Jason’s back. He definitely knows already, there’s no way to miss that feeling, and Jason is still reeling from the oddness of the foreign feeling in a part of his body that was normal just seconds before.

There’s only one reason an old guy like that would be interested in a kid like him.

Robin’s weird costume is suddenly making too much horrifying sense.

His hands shake even more on the tire iron. He grips it harder, waiting for the man to step closer. Just one swing, and if he gets it right he could get away; screw the tires, they aren’t worth _this_. And screw fate, if it thinks that Jason is just going to sit here and take being soulbonded to some creepy pedophile laying down.

“Huh,” Batman says. “You do know that’s my car, right?”

“Don’t see your name on it,” he grumbles. “I’m busy here so fuck off.”

“I would leave,” he steps closer, one pace to the left, “but my car is unfortunately missing a few of its tires.”

“I don’t know nothin’ about no tires,” Jason snarls.

“Really?” He does a good job giving the impression of a raised eyebrow with his tone alone. “Then, the tire over there on the ground has nothing to do with you?” the guy steps closer, and Jason braces himself.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about old man.”

And Batman…

Laughs.

A bucket of ice runs down Jason’s spine.

Just a bit closer.

“Ok, my mistake.” Another step. “What’s the tire iron for, then?”

Now.

“This!”

Jason twists and _swings_! The iron catches and he feels it in both arms, and he can’t hold on so he lets it go and dashes. Batman grunts but Jason is gone, around and away and almost free-

Then Batman grabs him. His blood turns to ice. _No_ , he thinks, _not like this, he’s not being taken away and made into some old guy’s personal whore, he’s been fighting too hard for too long_. But the grip is strong, and Batman is too big. Jason doesn’t even have his tire iron anymore, nothing to fight with other than grit and fists, and he’ll use them, but they won’t work.

“Let me go! Let go, you big boob!”

Batman huffs and raises him up by the back of his clothes with no effort, as if Jason is some small kitten and not an entire human being. “Big boob?”

Oh god, oh, fuck, he sounds amused. He’s going to be all weird and kinky about this shit, wasn’t he, the freak.

Jason redoubles his efforts; he lashes out, angry, scared, punches and kicks and screams, “Let go of me, let go, fuck off!”

He isn’t… Jason isn’t a whore! He’s taken money a few times, sure, hungry and desperate and too weak to pass off a chance for food, but not like this, not like… he was going to get _away_ from here, get out of the alley and get an education and a life, not become some rich guy’s obedient little pet just because Jason was Fate’s favourite punching bag.

His shoulder feels cold, and Jason almost forgets how to use that arm. The feeling is foreign and uncomfortable, a cold patch cutting off his arm from the rest of his body. Batman is still holding him in the air, and Jason is flailing, but it’s doing nothing, and now the man is just _looking_ at him, probably gazing all over his body to see just what street trash fate put at his doorstep, and Jason wants to cry. He wants home with him Mom, fed and warm and not about to be raped by a creepy old pedophile dressed in latex.

“Kid I’m not going to hurt you. You can calm down” And damn him for sounding so soft, because it almost drags a sob out of Jason, and the last thing he needs is to look even weaker.

“Then let me go!” he snaps.

Even behind the mask, the man seems to frown. “Kid, where are your parents?”

“Don’t call me that!” Like hell is he telling this guy that he’s alone. That’s just asking to be kidnapped.

Batman considers him for a second, and at this point, Jason gives up struggling. The guy is too strong, and Jason is weak enough from hunger as it is. Might as well preserve what’s left of his strength for when the creep tries to get him in bed.

“Ok, what should I call you then?”

He scowls. He isn’t giving the creep anything _(but). (but if he’s going to be kidnapped, he doesn’t want to lose his name so)_

“Peter,” he spits.

“Peter, then. Do you have anyone to take care of you?”

“Fuck off.” As if it isn’t obvious - even a scummy parent like Willis wouldn’t let him take this kind of risk if he was around, if only because a kid can’t bring in anything if they’re dead or locked up in juvie, so you try to keep them relatively safe.

“Are you hungry?”

Jason knows how that game goes. The creep isn’t getting any compliance from him, though. If he wants something from Jason, he’ll have to get it by force, and he’ll fight to the last moment (Batman is so big, and he’s built like a fucking tank) (it’s going to hurt-)

He glares, and the man sighs. Jason braces himself - men like him speak with their fists, Jason knows that much - but nothing happens. Well. Not Nothing, just, he isn’t attacked, so that counts as a win. Instead, Batman puts him on the ground, keeping one hand fisted in his hoodie.

“Come on. I’ll get you some food.”

He could discard the hoodie and run, but with the zip up, it would take too long, and he’s under no illusion that Batman wouldn’t be quick enough to stop him.

“I’m not getting in your car.”

And the guy looks amused again, he’s making some stupid half-smile that raises one corner of his mouth just a bit more, but it softens all his other traits (or how little of them Jason can see). It’s throwing Jason off, because he can’t read anything bad in his face, but it makes no sense.

“I’d hope not, considering I’ll need my tires back first.”

Oh. Yeah. The stupid tires.

He swallows, and when he steps, Batman moves to accommodate. He can only roll one tire at a time from where he has them hidden, but that’s alright because the guy can apparently just. Pick one up with a single arm as if it weighs nothing. Jason’s mouth goes dry.

“There, I got your fucking tires. Can I go now?”

“I’m going to need you to put them back, Peter.”

His fists clench, but he nodda jerkily and goes to pick up his iron from where it was discarded. Batman lets go of his hoodie, but his eyes are basically burning through Jason’s back where the mark isn’t tingling weirdly. Jason is under no illusion that he’s getting away here.

His fingers feel cold as he sets to work, and Batman’s intent stare feels like hot water on his skin, but he keeps going up until he realises that he doesn’t have the strength to screw the bolts in properly - it was easy enough to kick the iron when he was unscrewing but that wouldn’t work here, and Jason’s starting to shake, he can’t get them on right and Batman is Right There, looking at him-

“Here, let me help.”

Jason flinches.

The man pauses, but then he crouches, moves slowly, and takes the iron from Jason’t hands. His breath is stuck in his throat, and his heart is hammering in his chest, but he isn’t being beaten for messing up, and the man is helping.

They get all the tires back on, eventually, working together just like that. His arms feel like jelly by the time they’re done, and he’s even more hungry. And because those tires had been his only chance at a much needed meal, and he’s desperate, he gets in the car for the small chance at an actual meal.

His first meeting with his first soulmate went less than great.

***

  
Turns out Batman is Bruce Wayne. Figures it would be some crazy, rich fuck. 

***

Batman figures out his identity in less than two minutes.

Jason gets a good meal and a warm shower and a bed that feels like a cloud. He doesn’t get a wink of sleep in that bed, and spends the night hidden in a nook between the nightstand and the closet, with a pillow clutched to his chest, waiting for someone to walk into his room.

The next day, he’s clutching his backpack in frozen fingers as he shakily extorts promise after promise from Wayne. He isn’t holding his breath to actually have them honored - adults lie, and he’s not that naive - but he’s thinking the other shoe will drop at this point.

He isn’t thrown back on the streets though, and Wayne doesn’t flip his shit on him, either. He gets breakfast, instead, manages to squirrel away some pastries in his backpack, and spends the rest of the day just… exploring. On his own. Unsupervised.

***

There’s a _library_.

***

Jason’s always getting a lot of feelings in his soulmark with Wayne, being in proximity most of the time, but he has no idea how to interpret most of them. He knows that anger - real anger - burns, like searing pain, knows that from his mom who’d learned to live with the feeling. Jason never gets that from Wayne. Not when he mouths off or breaks fancy plates just to gauge his reaction, and not when they realize he’s been stealing food.

Instead, the mark feels despondently cold, like an empty winter day on the street when there was nobody around but the wind. He gets a whole bunch of protein bars and a jar of peanut butter to hide away wherever he wants.

Sometimes it feels warm, though. Not burning, but warm, and Jason never realized there were so many different types of warmth. He kind of likes that feeling, gentle like the sun shining right on him on an autumn day.

***

The library is the best place in the house. He manages to finish Pride and Prejudice, which he started before dropping out of school, and then starts and finishes Moby Dick. He’s currently tearing through The Great Gatsby with much wry amusement. It’s while he’s sitting in the library and reading that he starts wondering if he’ll get to go to school again. If he were a whore for Wayne then he wouldn’t, but he’s starting to think that maybe that isn’t the case.

His bed takes a close second to the library, now that he’s pretty sure Wayne isn’t going to rape him. He still isn’t sure why a grown ass man like him would have a kid for a soulmate, if he isn’t into kids

_(maybe Jason is just too scrawny for him, but then why would they be paired in the first place, if he isn’t the guy’s type?)_

but Wayne's body language never shows anything bad, not like his deadbeat dad, and not like the leery men who came to Crime Alley looking to prey on kids. None of the things he was getting through the mark feel like something bad, either, and Jason still doesn’t have words for what every feeling means, but he can kind of understand them regardless.

He’s starting to learn some of them, though. There are a lot of mentions about them in books, even though they don’t always agree on the specifics. And even though all the books only really talk about romantic soulbonds, and Jason… he doesn’t think it’s meant to be that way, with him and Wayne. He really hopes so, at least.

***

They own _silver cutlery. Who needs that?_

***

Jason Todd first meets his second soulmate weeks into his stay at Wayne Manor.

(Wayne Manor. As if anyone needs such a pretentious name for their house.)

Dick Grayson comes storming into the house, takes one look at Jason, and sneers at Bruce with so much vitriol that it sends Jason reeling, and he isn’t even the recipient. Bruce isn’t able to get two words in edgewise.

“I had to find out from a _newspaper_ , Bruce? Seriously? You couldn’t even be bothered to tell me that you were gonna replace me to my face?”

Jason is shaking. “Hey, Dickface, I’m right here if you have something to say!”

Richie Wayne is a vapid, superficial socialite who spends his days charming rich Gothamites and jumping beds. The glare turned his way is none of that. Jason realizes in a split second that this isn’t Gotham's sweetheart Richie Wayne. This is entirely Dick Grayson, focused, vicious and intense, with a glare that could freeze fire.

“This isn’t your problem, kid, so stay out!”

He’s slammed by cold so intense he staggers. He’s never heard of anger described as cold before, but this feels like a frost so cold it burns a hole in his gut, where the words are written on his skin, and there’s no word for the feeling other than rage.

At least the dick gets to have “dickface” written forever somewhere on his body, and he deserves it.

Jason hears a gasp. He realizes that Dickface probably felt the soulbond, too, but he can’t think about that when the feeling is so intense that all he can do was curl up and try to make it warm again, build up his shield and distance himself from the mark to dull the feeling, like he’s been practicing in secret. He’s never tried that with a feeling this strong, before.

Then just like that, it subsides.

Frost turns to heat turns to a soft, uneasy buzzing, and Jason is left shivering with phantom frost.

“Oh, shit-”

“Language, Master Dick!”

“Crap- I mean, sorry, Alfie. Damn. Kid? Hey, are you ok? Come on, look at me. I’m sorry about that. It must have been intense. There you go, you’re ok.”

Dick is on his knees before Jason, holding his shoulders gently, and the warmth of his hands seeps into him, pushing away the last vestiges of the frost. He can breathe normally, and Dick’s shoulders lose their tension at that point, too.

His left shoulder feels numb.

Overall, his meeting with his second soulmate could have gone better.

***

A big dramatic moment like that was apparently just what was needed, because when they all sit down, they’re all calmer and able to sort things out. Or, well.

Jason has to concede that Dickface had a point.

Apparently, he and Bruce had been having trouble for a while, and it boiled over when Dick had gotten badly hurt a while back. Bruce was too scared to have Robin on the streets, Robin was too worried to leave Batman on his own, they were both stubborn about crime fighting, and their feelings kept feeding into each other thanks to the marks, creating a feedback loop that left them both on edge and exhausted. So they’d taken a break, put some distance between them to figure stuff out on their own without the marks.

Except Bruce somehow managed to take that to mean that he wasn’t supposed to talk to his son at all, and proceeded to bring Jason home without saying a word to his real, actual son.

Jason would be pretty pissed, too, if he had to find something like that out from a newspaper.

So he and Dick both rip into Bruce while the man has no choice but to listen, and it seems to settle something in Dick, because the mess of feelings in his gut uncoils a bit.

Jason is sure he's about to be thrown back on the streets, for a second, because his presence is complicating things for everyone and surely Bruce would want to keep his son happy, except-

Except Dick is his soulmate, too.

And that’s another thing. Dick and Bruce are clearly comfortable with each other, bickering and arguing and conversing, and Jason isn’t getting the impression that Dick used to be Bruce’s whore. That isn’t how - kids like that don’t act this open. And Jason is pretty sure by this point that he’s safe here, but that small confirmation makes a weight lift from his shoulders, and it feels like he can breathe properly for the first time in weeks.

Bruce isn’t into kids.

And Dick is… still rightfully pissed at Bruce, which is fair, but he doesn’t begrudge Jason’s existence, not with the context given, so Jason can stay.

“Here, little wing. If Bruce is ever too much to handle, you can call me any time.”

Jason takes the scribbled note even while his nose is wrinkling.

“Little wing?”

Dickface laughs. “Well, yeah. I’m a robin, right? And you’re my little brother now, so you’re a bird, too. Therefore, little wing!”

“I guess?”

That gives him pause, though. He clutches the number, and hesitates, but… He’s seen Robin, sometimes, jumping around rooftops and flipping in mid air, and it looked so fun. “Do you think… Could you teach me sometime?”

Dick makes a questioning sound, so he goes on. “Like, your jumps, and your flips, and shit. It looks like fun…” he trails off. He should have just shut up from the start. He isn’t-

“Sure thing, little wing! As soon as I can visit you again, sound good?” Dick beams, and that smile is like looking straight into the sun without glasses, and his mark feels kind of the same, and jesus fuck. How can this guy be the same one who raised all of Jason’s danger instincts just earlier?

The mark on his shoulder feels weird, too, but not bad. A bit frosty and a bit warm at the same time, kind of like a patch of sunlight on an early spring morning, when the snow isn’t all melted but everything is slowly thawing.

And Jason can only nod, and think that maybe he could learn to enjoy this.

***

Alfred is teaching him how to cook, and Dick is teaching him gymnastics, and Bruce is helping him catch up with School before he has to start in autumn.

Life couldn’t get much better.

***

Batman is going to train him in martial arts.

***

Jason drops a plate.

It shatters against the ground, some kind of expensive ceramic china that cost more than his mom’s rent used to, and it's now nothing more than dozens splinters on the ground.

Jason drops to his knees. He picks at the shattered pieces with bare hands, holds them in too tight fists while trying to take too shallow breaths and to not panic because he’s broken so many dishes before, they’re never going to believe this one was a mistake, and then he’ll be kicked out, right back to the streets, just when he’s starting to truly love it here. He has to fix this. He had to clean up and to hide it away, before he’s caught and punished.

“Jason?”

His hands were frozen on the shards. His shoulder feels numb, but he’s sure that heat is building up. This time, for sure.

“I’m sorry,” he says anyway, because he has to try.

He isn’t kicked out.

Bruce discards the plate entirely, picks Jason up and fusses over his hands until he’s all cleaned and bandaged up, staring at the man with a numb sort of shock that must feel extremely uncomfortable in his mark.

When he starts dripping tears, he can’t stop them, though, no matter how hard he tries. Like a dam broke, they keep falling, and Bruce keeps holding him with those gentle hands, whipping his tears, and hugging him when that doesn’t work, and Jason keeps crying until he’s all out of tears and falling asleep against the man’s chest.

Big guys like him always speak with their fists, all force and anger, so why is Bruce always so gentle?

***

Training is anything but gentle, but that’s fine. The better he gets, the more he finds his own style. He would never be as acrobatic as Dick, but something in the frenetic pacing of a spar, in the jerking movements of a training set, the contained violence of it all, speaks to Jason on a personal level.

He can go to town on a sandbag and punch away at all his demons; can go hand to hand with Batman and find some kind of solace in the strength and physicality. He thinks sometimes that he was made for it.

If he was, he wants to use it for good.

He wants to use it for the kids who are where he was just a few months before, the moms who struggle like his had, the girls who suffer for no reason other than doing what they need to survive.

He wants to protect and to help.

He tells Batman that, one day. The man gives him a grave look, and he feels the numb coldness in his shoulder like air leaving his lungs, but the man accepts.

His training is kicked up several notches.

***

Bruce is trying to build him his own library. _În his room._

It’s awesome.

There’s all of Jane Austen and Dickens already piled up on his shelves in first edition binds and Jason gets a rush of giddy joy every time he sees them. There’s copies of these books already in the manor’s library, but these are _his_. He tears his way through both collections in weeks.

***

Dick drops by more and more often. He and Bruce are still arguing a lot, but he can tell that the distance is helping. The arguing is a bit less each time, and even Jason can tell that they’re both awful at communicating, but now that they can feel each other out without the excruciating feedback loop, the bumps in the road are smoothing out.

Jason doesn’t really get it - Wayne Manor is the best he’s ever had, he isn’t sure why Dick would want to _leave_. But Bruce told him, once, what he got through the soulbond - the suffocating feeling that came through during his worst fights with Dick, and why they both had to step back before they ran out of air.

So Dick gets to have his space, and when he’s willing to step back into theirs, Bruce gets to try and smother him for a bit.

When he isn’t arguing with Bruce, Dick is taking Jason out, or showing him how to do backflips, or trying to poison him with the most ridiculous concoctions made of ice-scream and cereals and every sweet thing he can find in the kitchen.

Dick is a heathen and he gets banned from the kitchen when Jason is there.

It’s not always that great; sometimes, Dick’s temper flares, and Jason’s mark burns, and Dick jerks back, probably burned in return. Sometimes, Dick just ignores them, goes off the grid with no explanation, and Jason always gets bitter and lashes out in return _(hurt - angry - angry because he’s hurt)_

He’s starting, at least, to understand better what Dick meant when he said “I’m a robin”. It’s not just that Dick is Robin, Batman’s sidekick. Dick has this propensity and love for being in the air. He’s always gravitating to high surfaces, doing flips and swinging chandeliers, and climbing as high up as he can in any place he’s in. He’s at ease in the air.

He’s maybe also starting to understand why Dick said “You’re a bird, too”. Jason might never have Dick’s grace and his absolute ease in acrobatics, but he is learning to inherit his propensity for being in the air. There’s something comfortable and freeing about being high up, climbing or jumping or flipping somewhere higher than anyone else can get, where it’s just you and the birds (or bats, as it may be); whether that’s the manor’s roof, or the gym equipment in the cave.

The first time they both end up on the roof at the same time, far into the late hours of the night (or maybe the early hours of the morning, depending on how soon the sun will start peeking past the horizon), Dick beams at him with that megawatt smile, and Jason rolls his eyes.

It doesn’t detract from the uncomfortable numbness in his stomach, a bit like blood starting to flow through a sleeping limb, but the silence that follows is comfortable.

***

Jason wonders about his other soulmates, sometimes.

He hadn’t wanted anything to do with them, before, but things have been good, with Bruce, and Dick, and Alfred. He has several other marks, but this is the first time he’s thinking that maybe he’d like to meet all of them.

A lot of soulmates never work out, just like his parents didn’t, but now that he’s reading more, looking into things, he thinks he understands. The marks are like a guide. A helping hand putting you into the life of the people who could have the biggest meaning for you. It’s up to you to make it work though, and that’s probably where his parents went wrong.

He feels more comfortable, with that knowledge. With the thought that it’s not fate, set in stone, but a path you carve out as you walk along.

***

Jason still prods and pushes. He tests boundaries; mouths back and rolls his eyes and is contrary just for the sake of it, and he can feel Bruce's irritation through the soulbond many times, but it's… good. Despite it, Bruce never flips out, and it's almost always followed by a burst of warm fondness. It pulls at the corner of his mouth in that stupid smile of his that looks like he never learned how to smile, but it also tingles weirdly in his shoulder, and this feeling he isn’t sure how to describe but he thinks he understands anyway.

***

Balancing school and training at the same time is grueling. He falls in bed every night worked to the bone, sore and tired but filled with a satisfaction he’d never known he could feel. The soreness in his muscles is becoming like a friend, which is good since he doesn’t have any of those at school. That’s fine, though; he’s way too busy catching up where things still confuse him sometimes, and tearing through his reading list. He can't be bothered to pretend that he’s cool enough for the other kids at his fancy new school, and it would be hard anyway considering he punched several of them in the face for being dumb bullies.

_(Gotham Academy. Him. Jason Todd, going to Gotham Academy. If his mom could see him now-)_

He could fit in, if he wanted to; Batman’s training covers a lot of things, and acting is a basic of fitting into any environment. It wouldn’t be too hard, either; pulling a cover around himself, like a glove covering all his deepest truths, building it out of convenient lies so it can protect the most vulnerable parts of himself - it comes surprisingly easy to Jason, after a while. He doesn’t particularly want to do it for the assholes at school, though. There, he gets to be his most unapologetic self.

***

Dick told him, once, when he was brainstorming ideas for his secret identity, about how Robin came to be.

“My mom used to call me that,” he said, looking up at the stars from his perch on the rooftop. “‘Her little robin’, she’d say every time I managed to pull off a new flip for the first time.” There was something about his smile, something that made it look a bit painful, that made Dick look a bit small, even though he was one of the biggest guys Jason knew.

Maybe it was melancholy; it was definitely a bit grief, heavy and bitter like a weight on his abdomen, a bit chilly like something empty inside him. A bit warm too, like the first sunny days after winter.

Maybe he didn’t need words for all the feelings; maybe words didn’t always encompass everything, but Jason thought he understood a bit. He thought about his own mom, and thought maybe Dick’s mark would feel the same.

“The suit is based on my old circus one. Those were our colors, you know? Even though I left the circus, back then, I wanted to keep some of it with me.”

The atmosphere was too somber, so Jason snorted. “You can't take the circus out of the boy, huh,” he teased.

Dick poked him in the side, and Jason shrieked and poked him back, and then they were nearly tumbling off the rooftop trying to tickle each other.

If his mark felt oddly warm, and if Dick’s in return probably felt the same, they didn’t need to say anything about it out loud.

***

That said, why the fuck is Dick standing before him in the cave, talking bullshit about Jason taking the Robin suit?

“Fuck no,” Jason snaps.

“Come on, little wing, you’d look great in the colors!”

“Are you stupid, dickface? That’s your costume, your - your family’s memory. I’m not taking that,” he snarls, because he’s an ass, but not that much of an ass.

“Aww, I’m moved, Jaybird, but you’re my family too, you know?”

“Fuck you!”

“Language, master Jason.”

“Sorry, Alfie! Anyway, what the hell are you even gonna do, Dickface, just retire? Have two robins running around? No way. That’s your suit.”

His abdomen buzzes, and his shoulder is warm, and Jason’s temper flares.

“I’m not retiring, little wing. But I’m… growing up, you could say. I’ve been in this costume for a long time but I’m too big for it now.”

Jason rolls his eyes, because he knows that the costume was revised and adjusted as he grew up.

“No, really. I’m still gonna fight crime, just not as Robin.”

And that’s… Jason is curious. By Dick’s grin, he can feel it as well. He scoffs, just to be contrary, but. “Ok, I’ll bite. What are you gonna do?”

“Well, I'm glad you asked, little one!” He swings his arms out with all the showmanship of the drama queen he is, and twists to grab something from behind the screens, unveiling it with a little flourish and a “Ta~daaa~!”

Jason wants to roll his eyes at him again, but his eyes are refusing to leave the costume.

Jason bursts into laughter, he can’t help it, because-

It’s awful. An abomination. There’s golden accents, and a high collar, and every bit of it drips tasteless excess.

Dick is pouting.

It takes Jason a few minutes to calm down, and Dick is still pouting, and Bruce is still radiating amusement from where he’s pretending that he isn’t listening to them.

“You’re mean, little wing. Here I was being nice, offering you my old costume-”

“At least it isn’t as bad as the new one.”

“And you only give me snark! I’m wounded.”

Jason shrugs. Dick isn’t really upset, so he isn’t worried.

“What are you gonna name this monstrosity, then?”

For a second, Dick looks contrary, but he gives in. “Nightwing,” he says, and despite trying to keep the pouting act on, he can’t seem to help but preen a little.

Jason whistles.

“No kidding. So, you’re striking out on your own? For real?”

Dick shrugs, but the casual gesture is belied by the twisted knot of undefined feeling in Jason’s gut, that doesn’t belong to him. That’s definitely new, and he can’t begin to untangle everything that’s supposed to mean, but Dick is definitely nervous, at the very least, and it leaves Jason a bit jittery.

“I’ve thought about it for a while, but Robin… I’m not that kid anymore. I’m my own hero now, so I need to start over, with a costume that fits me now.”

“A gaudier costume, maybe.”

Dick huffs.

“I want you to take Robin, little wing.”

So they’re back to that. “Look, Dickface, I appreciate it, but I can’t just _take_ the last thing you have from your family.”

“Jay, you haven’t come up with a different costume yet, right? You’re not taking it, I’m giving it to you. Keep Robin alive even if I can’t be him anymore.”

Jason sighs, distinctly uncomfortable. The twisted feeling is still there, but it’s his now, too. “I can’t be like you, Dickface, ok?” He knows he isn’t as great as Dick, and he doesn’t need that kind of pressure.

Dick’s face softens. “Oh, Jaybird. You don’t need to be like me. You have your own strengths, so make Robin your own and keep it alive.”

His eyes feel heavy with tears, but he blinks them back. He remembers being a kid, sorting through a dumpster one night and looking up at a sound. Robin, running just above him. Leaping off a building with such a gleeful exclamation that it had caught Jason’s breath for a second, flipping around mid-air as if he were flying. Remembers wishing he could be that free and untethered.

“Ok,” he says, hoarse.

***

The day he finally wears the costume for the first time, Jason is the happiest he’s ever been.

He goes for a walk to calm the jitters under his skin, looks at the for-once sunny sky, and lets himself bask in the happiness for a few hours.

It’s the best day of his life.

***

“Being Robin gives me magic!”

There’s twin bursts of fond warmth shivering under his skin, and he can’t even muster a scowl.

***

Not all days are great. The training for Robin taught him to wear his mask like a glove and slide into any context like a natural-born member. It helps, when he has to join his first gala.

Bruce adopts him.

Officially.

It still doesn’t feel real. He’s Bruce Wayne’s actual son. He’s been at the manor for over six months, but he still wakes up needing to remind himself that it’s all real, most mornings, and now he’s a member of this house for real, and Bruce is his dad, and Dick is his brother, and if he manages to stay on his best behavior maybe he can have this forever.

So.

He has to be good at the gala.

There’s a lot of great food, but he doesn’t even get to eat it because people keep trying to talk to him, as if he can’t read the sneers in the curve of their eyebrows if they just plaster on a smile and speak in twisted jabs.

He pushes down his temper, though. Bruce can probably feel it, but there’s no working around that, and at least he’s not acting on it.

He puts on a nice smile, acts out his role, and pretends like his gut isn’t roiling when someone he knows from before leers at him.

Bruce knows, of course. He pulls Jason out with some thin excuse about some relatives.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks the moment they’re away. He wasn’t meant to ruin this party.

“No, Jay, there’s nothing to be sorry about.”

He’s prepared to argue, but there’s no anger coming through his mark.

“Jaylad, speak to me. What happened in there? You went all numb and hurting.”

Jason takes a step back. He doesn’t want to bring up that someone in there met him on a street corner, once. That the guy clearly recognised him. That his eyes burned into Jason’s body like he was being undressed right there in the manor.

So he lashes out. Snaps. “It’s nothing! Leave it alone, Bruce. There’s a gala to finish.”

He stomps away, and ignores the despondent chill in his shoulder.

***

He was wrong. The best day of his life is getting to meet Wonder Woman.

How is this his life?

***

Being Robin is the greatest thing ever. It’s also a mixed bag.

Batman usually goes after the big crimes. He stops the occasional mugging or two, but his rogues, or mobsters, or big crimes like that take priority.

Jason follows him, of course. He gets a giddy satisfaction every time a new criminal is caught, every time he stops a crime and makes a difference, and knows that people were saved because of him.

Jason also notices the problems, though.

There’s so much focus on the big crime, that the small things fall to the side. Children at street corners and abused mothers and small people just going through their days- all of the worst things Jason knew about long before Robin even became a possibility, they still happen all the same. Jason isn’t in the middle of it anymore, sure. But people still suffer horrific crimes, and Jason can’t help all of them.

So he makes an effort. Pulls Batman a bit closer to Park Row when they’re out on patrol. Makes sure to be extra vigilant when he passes by corners he’s familiar with. Stops every once in a while to reassure a victim, instead of disappearing into the night, because he knows how hard it is to feel safe after something like that, even if the perpetrator was stopped, and a few kind words can go a long way.

When he punches the bad guys, he’s not really punching them, just like he’s never really punching the sandbag. He’s punching his ghosts, his past, his nightmares that stand before him, and if he punches a bit too hard, does more damage than strictly necessary, then it’s deserved.

***

Jason’s immune system isn’t the best. Years of poor nutrition doesn't go away in a few months, so when the air is particularly cold one night, and he’s too stubborn to tell Bruce that he’s cold, he ends up sick.

Figures.

He still wants to go on patrol, it’s his duty, but everything’s fuzzy, and his nose is running, and his extremities are cold. Bruce is in full gear when he sits next to Jason on the couch, talks to him in that steady, soothing tone that calms him right down, and watches a movie with him until Jason is cuddled up to him and falling asleep.

“Th’nks dad…” he mumbles just before he’s gone, and he feels the warmth burst with something happy where his shoulder is pressed against Bruce.

Later, when he’ll remember that night, he’ll take that memory and tuck it safely away, somewhere deep within him where his most important things are held.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His fourteenth year might be the most mixed baggage Jason’s ever had, but it’s still somehow the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I have Barbara mostly right, but I honestly don't know much about her or her timeline pre-becoming oracle. Here's to hoping I mostly got it.
> 
> This and chapter one were written together as a single chapter originally, so I really just went ham for a few days over there. Next chapter is being written currently, but I could honestly use some feedback before I set my direction in stone since I'm still questioning myself there. If there's something in particular anyone would like to see happen, I'd love to hear it!
> 
> Also, if anyone knows anything about Steph and Cass's timelines, then please help a pal out here! I have no idea how to handle them because I have no idea when their relevant events actually took place.

Jason Todd is introduced to his third soulmate by Dick.

He loves going to school. He loves discovering new books, loves discussing with teachers about real issues and learning something new every day, just for the sake of learning it. It was the worst part of being on the streets, he thinks, accepting that he’d never have this. Now, he never wants to let go.

He’s great at English and literature, and he has the humanities mostly down pat. Math and the sciences are harder to keep up with when he’s still iffy on some of the fundamentals, so Dick introduces him to Barbara Gordon for help.

“So you’re the little one,” she says by way of greeting, and Jason already knows how that statement will end. “This one’s been telling me all about you.” She points at Dick with a wry smile. Jason is good enough at reading people to find the small signs of displeasure in the slight pull at the corner of her eyes and the curve of her smile.

Great.

He searches for something snarky to say to hide the dread pitting in his stomach, but Dick is already giving him a look, so he surges ahead with “‘S that really what he calls me to his friends? I’m hurt. I’ll have ya’ know I’ve grown a lot since comin’ here.”

There. Nice and neutral and just snarky enough - not that it matters, when two seconds later, the bond is springing to life, and their feelings rush through. There’s a weary sort of curiosity he can read in the odd, tingly numbness, and the disapproval he read in her face is much more pronounced in the chilly emptiness he feels in his ribcage. There’s also a flare of begrudging acceptance, a small buzzing warmth that just starts to form underneath everything else.

Awesome. He didn’t even get the chance to _earn_ her disdain.

Something must rebound to Dick, because he’s giving them both heavy looks, but he sighs and resigns himself to whatever happens between them. Barbara is looking at Jason with a studying look that he returns fully.

Their first impressions could have gone better.

***

She’s ridiculously smart. Despite the initial coldness between them, Jason loves learning from Barbara. The grudging acceptance from her side of the bond grows, too.

He finds out eventually from Dick that the slivers of cold he can still feel in his ribcage every time she’s close come from disapproval of his methods. He’s too violent compared to the original Robin, in her mind.

He asks Dick what he thinks about that.

“I gave Robin to you, little wing. I knew you wouldn’t be like me, and I don’t expect you to be, yeah? Do your best in your way, not mine, Jay.”

Jason remembers, then, that Dick has an idea what it’s like, to be in someone’s shadow and pressured to live up to that. Dick had moved cities to get out of that shadow, after all.

***

His fourteenth year might be the most mixed baggage Jason’s ever had, but it’s still somehow the best.

Jason loves being Robin. He loves helping people, loves the weightlessness of it, the joy of a job well done, and the thrill of jumping off a building and telling the world “come and get me” yet still being in complete control.

It’s not perfect, though. He’s breaking more bones on patrol. He doesn’t mean to be excessively aggressive, but some of the criminals he deals with just make him so _angry_. in the ways they’re just like Willis. In the ways they’re like the creeps paying kids on corners in Crime Alley. In the ways they’re just like the worst the world can offer, and he knows as much because he’s seen it before, _lived it_ before.

He and Bruce fight about it.

Bruce doesn’t understand, he thinks, so he gets a lot of lectures. His parents were murdered, yeah, but it’s not the same type of trauma. He wasn’t a victim in the way Jason was, in the way these people are.

Bruce, with all his experiences, isn’t able to accept that some people are unapologetically awful and no amount of appealing to their better nature will change them, not when causing pain is the point for some.

Jason was a kid who used to fear for his life every day, not knowing if he’ll survive to eat his next meal. He deserved better, he knows he did, and he truly believes with all his heart that every victim he saves deserves _better_ too. They deserve to feel safe, and to live in a world meant to alleviate suffering, not curate it. And it makes him so damn _angry_ because it shouldn’t be like that. The world should be better, _people_ should be better, why can’t everyone _see_ that?

They fight about it.

Bruce isn’t likely to understand what things look like for people like him, but Jason tries to accept that and work around it. Bruce, for all his love for Gotham, will never really get it’s true darkness.

It hurts more than Jason would admit, when Bruce is lecturing, especially since he's feeling the anger mixed with worry through their soulbond. He must understand -must feel- some of Jason’s anger _(hurt/fear/pain/compassion)_ in turn, because he always backs off at that point, and lets Jason work out his feelings, even if the sickening twist of worry radiates through his shoulder.

And besides, it’s not all bad. They open the Catherine foundation, a charity for the most vulnerable people of crime alley to find the help they need.

He manages to bring food to other homeless kids around the alley, sometimes. They all look at him with weary eyes.

“What d’ya want in exchange,” they ask him, and he shakes his head, because he wants nothing from them. He directs the smallest ones to the Catherine foundation, where they can at least get some new clothes, and hands out advice about the biggest dangers of the streets.

He wakes up at night, sometimes, not because of his own nightmares, but because there’s so much pain radiating through Dick’s soulbond, even though he’s several cities away, that it leaves Jason reeling. He can barely breathe around it, when it happens, and then it rebounds from Bruce and gets even worse, and Jason has only half a mind as he punches a number into his phone with shaky fingers.

Dick only picks up after a few rings, and his voice always sounds strained when he says “Hey, little wing.”

Jason isn’t sure what Dick dreams about, on those nights. He wonders if his nightmares feel the same to them, or if his experiences aren’t as grueling as whatever Dick has seen as a vigilante.

“Hey, dickiebird,” he'd say on the phone, pretending like his breathing isn’t labored. “Did ya’ know we had to read Shakespeare for school this week?” he starts talking. “I mean it's not bad, dude’s a legend and a master wordsmith, but these are plays, Dickie! Did you know that plays aren’t meant to be read? They’re supposed to be watched and listened to, they aren’t novels! Like, of course people don’t get why he’s amazing if they’re forced to consume him the wrong way!”

Dick laughs, and something in Jason uncoils, just a bit. “God, you’re such a nerd, Jaybird.”

He shrugs, because that’s fair, and keeps going, because the pain isn’t gone, and he talks just like that, about whatever comes to mind, until he can finally hear the soft, even breathing on the other side.

Every time Dick visits after an episode like that, he teaches Jason a new move. He gets much better at gymnastics this year.

He becomes better at comforting victims, too. Batman still isn’t any good at that - would feel much more comfortable disappearing into the night every time. So Jason has to pull him back out of his brooding sphere. They do all of this for the people, and the people deserve their effort to be there to the end.

He likes that part. Talking them down, helping them through the panic until they find even a smidge of comfort, reassuring them that he’ll be there to help again. The satisfaction of seeing that relief wash over a scared child, over a hurt teenager, over a terrified woman, it’s like nothing else, and sometimes, there’s something thankful in their gazes. Jason tucks those moments carefully away with all his most important memories.

***

Jason Todd meets his fourth soulmate on patrol.

There’s a kid with a dumb hairstyle dangling off a lamppost. Jason stares at him for several long seconds, because _what the fuck_. He almost laughs. It’s 2AM, and there’s a kid in expensive clothes with a fancy camera propped on top of a lamp post in the middle of the Gotham slums, just out of Robin’s patrol route.

There’s something wrong with that picture.

He swoops in just before the kid’s legs give out, grabs him by the back of the shirt like Batman did with Jason that first night, and puts him down on steady ground. The kid is looking at him with wide eyes and barely standing still, shoulders raised to his ears and tension coiled under his skin. Jason purposely relaxes his stance, and gives the kid a bright grin.

“No need to worry, kid, I’m not gonna eat ya’ or nothin”.

The kid _recoils_ away from him, and Jason slumps. He doesn’t know why he’s so bad at this, why he can’t reassure someone like this when Dickface would have already wrapped the kid around his little finger. Jason is trying, but somehow he’s only scaring the kid.

Icy blue eyes go even wider than before, and there’s a frantic movement from the kid. “No, don’t feel bad, please!”

Those words make no sense, and for a second Jason is parsing through them.

A burst of feeling from his right forearm cuts him off.

There’s a frantic buzzing and an off shift between states and feelings, and Jason is looking at the kid in horror. It looks like he’s about to say something, but Jason is panicking-

_(he’s in costume) (there’s so much feeling) (too much too much too much-)_

so he flees.

His first meeting with his fourth soulmate could have gone better. That’s starting to look like a pattern.

***

Later, when he tells Bruce, the man is stuck between amused and worried. Worried is winning out slowly, because his paranoid ass is definitely busy coming up with worst case scenarios and contingencies for contingencies in case this reveals all their identities to the civilian.

Dick just laughs at him.

***

Those contingencies might be necessary sooner rather than later, because at the next Wayne gala, Jason starts feeling that restless buzzing in his arm again about an hour in, and their identities are quickly tethering on the edge.

Jason is very carefully not panicking, but he does carefully start looking around him with the excuse of greeting several guests, trying to pinpoint the danger.

His eyes meet icy blue in the crowd.

Jason spends the night avoiding the kid with all the skill of his long training, though he does get a few surprises in the form of the kid appearing out of nowhere just a few paces away. He’s getting the feeling that the buzzing from that first night isn’t necessarily indicative of a feeling. It’s more the kid’s general presence. The way he can feel Bruce like a steady weight, and Dick like a familiar breeze, the kid’s presence is jittery and edgy and weirdly alive with it.

***

Bruce recognizes the kid when Jason points him out on the security tapes, later that night. Timothy Jackson Drake, the son of their next-door neighbors. Because the universe still loves laughing at Jason’s expense.

The next time he feels it isn’t as a civilian though. He’s on patrol again, breaking a rapist’s arm, when the buzzing returns, and upon searching, finds Tim stalking him from the top of a building. The kid jumps back when he’s spotted, but Jason has no intention of approaching him, so he beats a tactical retreat.

It happens again three nights later.

***

“I think my soulmate is stalking us,” he tells Bruce after it happens several more times.

Bruce raises an eyebrow at him. “Stalking us. Timothy?”

“Yep,” he pops the p.

“He’s a ten year old,” Bruce says, as if Jason is somehow being extremely obtuse.

“He’s twelve, and I’m telling you, he’s been on our tail almost every night. It’s not like I can mistake that feeling, and I spotted him every time.

Bruce seems unconvinced. Jason is aware that it sounds crazy, having a twelve year old following The Batman of all people around without being noticed, but it still hurts that Bruce won’t believe him, regardless.

Some of that hurt must make it to Bruce, because he draws back for a second, and then concedes. “All right. We’ll deal with it.”

***

The baby stalker becomes less of an issue, but Jason gets a feeling he got better at staying out of range and muting his presence, rather than having stopped stalking.

***

Jason doesn’t like dancing around a problem, so it’s not much longer before he’s looking for the kid. Sure enough, he spots the pasty skin and dangling camera only a few buildings away. On top of the rusty old fire escape.

Jesus fuck.

He swings over before the kid manages to retreat, and drops down on the next building over.

“Timothy Drake,” he says, raising an eyebrow in that way Bruce always does to intimidate him.

It seems to work better on the kid, because he squeaks and jumps in his skin. The fire escape screeches and Jason waits.

“Robin!” Tim says, choked and high-pitched. His mark is buzzing with stressed energy.

Jason waits another second, but the kid seems frozen, so he takes the next step.

“Ok, come on kid, we’re gettin' off the tall, extremely structurally unsound construction, and then we can talk.”

He grabs the kid by the scruff of his clothes before he can protest and grapples away from the screeching structure. “Jesus, kid. I’m amazed you’re still alive, if you pull these kinds of stunts all the time. What are you thinking, running around Gotham at night?”

They’re standing on top of an old apartment building. The sounds of traffic underneath are muted, and Gotham’s smog is as thick as ever, shielding them from prying eyes. Timothy’s mark seems as conflicted as his face, so Jason can be comfortable that his skill for reading people hasn’t gone completely down the shitter.

“I know what I’m doing,” the kid settles on eventually. “I’ve been doing it for years and I haven’t been hurt yet.”

“Yet,” Jason drawls.

“I know what I’m doing,” the kid repeats, with all the misplaced confidence of one who hasn’t yet failed.

“Right, ok. So, you’re tellin' me you’ve been stalking Batman and Robin for years.”

Jason is having fun.

“Of course not.” And, oh, the kid could lie with the best of them. Jason almost believes him.

As it is, he knows the truth. “Of course not, you’re only followin' us around the city every night, takin' pictures.”

The kid blushes. Jason is delighted. The buzzing in his arm changes texture, and he’s realizing that the kid’s feelings come across differently from Dick’s and Bruce’s, all jittery and frantic, regardless of what the underlying feeling is, and yeah, Jason can have fun with this.

The kid is trying to hide the camera with his own body, but Jason intervenes before Timothy can dig his grave even deeper. “Can I see?”

Timothy’s eyes go wide. The buzzing calms, replaced by an odd stillness Jason can’t describe. Then he moves, slowly, uncovering the camera with careful, steady hands. He says nothing, but he opens the display, and turns it for Jason to take.

His pictures are breathtaking.

They’re mostly of him. There’s a few of Gotham’s skyline, or the city’s lights at night, and a few of them feature Batman somewhere in the frame, but Robin is clearly the object of the lens.

They’re dynamic shorts, catching him in motion, running or leaping. One of them even caught from beneath, in the middle of a flip between two buildings, his body curved and facing just off from the camera. It looks as if he’s flying. In every picture, Jason is grinning, open and crooked.

This is how the kid sees him.

Jason’s breath hitches.

“Ya' do this every night?” he asks.

“Most nights, yeah,” the kid admits, and Jason can see the passion in every picture, every frame. He can understand that, maybe.

“Kid, these are amazing.”

“It’s Tim!”

“Wha’?”

“My name,” the kid says, after the rushed declaration, shoving his hand in Jason’s direction. “You called me Timothy, earlier. It’s Tim.”

Jason grins. “It’s nice to meet ya', Tim.”

***

Tim doesn’t speak about his family. Jason spends a bit of his patrol time with the kid, whenever he can. He can’t approach Tim as Jason, so the least he can do is talk to him as Robin, after all.

He’s out there almost every night, and it worries Jason that he manages to do that without supervision, but he isn’t able to get much out of the kid. Whenever the subject of his family comes up, Tim evades and changes the topic with so much skill that Jason doesn’t even realize it until later.

It would be almost impressive, if it wasn’t frustrating.

That could describe a lot about Tim, though, to be fair. He’s smart and sneaky and has this energy to him that drives him to move and act and _do_ so much, constantly, and it’s a bit infectious. He’s funny and as sharp-witted as Alfred’s best knife set, and he takes to Jason’s crude humor with a startling ease.

He’s also sad. There’s a permeating feeling of loneliness that Jason can see a bit more of every time he meets the kid, a helplessness that’s at odds with his sheer competence and energy. It’s hard to read, because Tim won’t give Jason details, and Jason can only press so much while keeping his identity hidden, but he has time. He’ll figure it out.

***

The fights and lectures get more intense after Jason turns fifteen.

He understands why Bruce thinks the way he does, but that doesn’t stop Jason from thinking that Bruce isn’t always right. There’s knots of feelings rebounding between them, and they turn every fight into a mess. He can feel Bruce’s nausea at the thought of even a single death, and he knows how much Bruce hurts every time they allow even a single victim to die, but…

Jason isn’t willing to extend that courtesy to the criminals. He wouldn’t kill anyone, but he also can’t find it in himself to feel bad if the bad guys do die.

That’s one more victim sleeping easier at night.

***

The pain flares in his soul mark like he’s being stabbed with fire. Jason is in school when it happens - he screams and falls from his chair, barely registering the sudden noise of the classroom around him behind the overwhelming pain in his ribcage.

He tries to breathe, to get some semblance of control, to even get one word out, but he can only hold his ribs and try not to cry.

A part of him wonders if this is rebounding on his other soulmate - on Tim. He hopes not; the kid isn’t in the feedback loop between the rest of them, but it hurts so much that it just might.

He sends a mental apology to the kid, even if it can’t possibly reach him.

He registers being moved, but can’t be bothered keeping track of where. He’s barely holding on, Barbara is - she’s -

He wakes up in the infirmary. The memory of burning agony is fresh on his mind, the nurse tries to calm him down, but Jason is frantic. There’s nobody here, not Bruce or Dick, he’s alone with no idea what happened, and his phone is nowhere, and he doesn't know what happened.

“Mr. Todd, calm down, please!” The woman says next to him, a bit too pointed, and Jason glares. She sighs, and continues. “Your father has contacted the school to send you home as soon as you wake up. There’s a car waiting for you in front of the school, so if you’re able to move, you will be handed a slip. Now, is there any residual pain?”

There isn’t any. He isn’t sure if that’s reassuring, or worrying.

***

Barbara is paralyzed.

***

Jason spends the most time visiting her in the hospital out of the whole family .She’s distant, at first, but Jason can’t find it in himself to hold her coldness against her. She’s gone through things he can’t imagine, things that will haunt her forever, and Jason wants to be there for her.

They talk more than they ever have before, once she starts opening up. He’s able to empathize with her in a way the rest of the family isn’t able to. They don’t have that baseline for understanding, and while Jason hasn’t gone through quite the same ordeal, he comes closer. He’s familiar with the underlying terror of feeling like you’ll never be safe again. She’s trying to stay detached, but the constant waves of chilling terror feel like they’re shattering his ribs to bits every time he gets close to her.

He tries to send her warmth, in return.

They talk about books, most days. She introduces Jason to several new favorites, and Jason has never enjoyed ranting about books quite as much with anyone else. Sometimes it’s history, instead, when something he heard at school particularly sticks with him, and she helps him peel back the layers of presentation and hear the events behind the propaganda.

The coldness ebbs away. Her presence shifts slightly, to something less steady but more warm.

Then one day, she bursts open. He holds her hand as she cries heaving sobs, admits that she’s terrified, that the Joker is still out there, that she has no idea what to do with herself, and Jason listens, pointedly holding back his own tears until he’s alone in his room.

He wishes he could kill the clown.

***

Batman and Robin bust up a human trafficking ring.

Jason wants to throw up. He wants to break bones.

Robin has a more important job.

They find the victims locked away in a filthy room on the second floor of the warehouse, hurt and terrified out of their minds, and Jason’s heart seizes.

“Hey. It’s ok,” he says, in the gentlest tone he can muster. He moves slowly, projecting his movements clearly, and kneels just inside the room to put himself lower. “We’re here to help.”

There’s a girl standing closest to him, just slightly older than all the others. Jason wants to hope she’s his age. She’s probably younger. She stands between him and all the other kids, trembling in her skimpy dress but putting herself forward as a shield regardless.

Jason fixes his eyes on her for the conversation, instead of the other, even younger kids trembling behind her. “The guys who kidnapped you are being taken in,” he explains. “You’re gonna be ok now.”

The girl scoffs. “Then y'er idiots. Their bosses are gonna get ya’.”

He smiles, crooked, because at least she isn’t naive. She wouldn’t be, but still. “Nah, we’ve already handled those fucks. Don’t worry, this isn’t our first rodeo.”

He doesn’t give it much thought when he hears the swish of Batman’s cape behind him, his footsteps only just discernible. He’s already turning to tell him that he has this handled, when he sees it. The children, who’d all been shaking up to this point, are now frozen stiff, and eyes which held weary defiance now look behind him with terror.

Fuck.

He turns around, and already he’s going through scenarios for this. He has to get Batman, big and tall and looming, out of here. Their eyes meet, and something must pass through his mark, because the man stiffens. “You have this handled?” he asks simply, and Jason nods.

He hesitates, just a second, eyes passing over the kids, and Jason’s mark burns for a second before it’s replaced by an emptiness that feels as if his shoulder is just gone, and he bites on his tongue. He can’t confront the man here, with the kids. Later.

Then Batman leaves.

“You’re from the alley, right?” 

The girl startles, as if she’d almost forgotten him. “Wha…”

“Your accent. It’s Crime Alley,” he explains, letting a bit more of his natural drawl bleed back into his voice.

“Ya' too?” Her voice wavers, but there’s something open in her gaze.

“Born and bred. Learned more on those streets than I pro’lly even know.”

“Then how…” Her dubious gaze at the doorway speaks volumes, and Jason chuckles, because yeah. That’s fair.

“Jacked his tires, if you’d believe it. Moron took one look at the street rat swingin' an iron at him and decided to take me home.”

He winces almost as soon as the words are out - he should have worded that more carefully, he knows that, but the words are out now and he has to fix this. If the kids panic, as they’re starting to, he’ll never regain their trust, and he can’t let that happen, so he goes on before they can finish processing.

It’s awkward, trying to hold his hands up reassuringly when it feels like his shoulder isn’t there and he can’t quite figure out how to move his left arm. “No, it’s ok, I didn’t mean it like that. He’s a good guy, really. We’re here to help ya’ all.”

“... How?”

It’s more resignation in her voice, than hope, but it’s a start that Jason will take.

“The guys here are all gonna be in custody soon, and their bosses were already dealt with,” he explains again. “They won’ be coming after ya’ again. I promise.” She nods, but he keeps going. “There are shelters - privately owned ones, not with the CPS, which are actually clean. We made sure they’re completely safe for ya’.”

For the sake of the children, he keeps his calm and gentle disposition the entire time. Underneath, his blood is boiling. But it works, and the kids follow him out, and it settles him just a bit, when he gets them out safe.

“Would ya’ stop that already?” he growls when he joins Batman to the side of the commotion. “Do you know how fuckin’ uncomfortable it is to feel like your shoulder’s just gone? Cut it out!”

Bruce chuckles.

Jason starts stretching as feeling comes rushing back into his shoulder and he can move his arm again, pointedly ignoring Bruce’s smile, small and soft at his side.

“You did good in there, Robin,” the man says. It’s Baruce, not Batman, despite the cowl still being up, making Jason swallow as something heavy settles in his gut. Then Bruce’s hand settles on Jason’s head, ruffling his messy curls, big and warm and comfortable, and-

“I’m proud of you.”

Jason blinks back tears.

***

Someone committed suicide.

Gotham’s justice system is a joke, and a rapist went free, and now his victim is dead.

Jason can’t even imagine the type of terror the poor woman must have gone through, knowing that her rapist is walking, that he’s free to just do it again at any moment with no repercussions. Being openly threatened, after everything she’s been through already. That she’s never going to be safe again.

He wants to puke. He wants to scream and rage, wants to trash something until everything goes away.

The memory of her corpse, hanging in her own home, empty and cold, is going to haunt him forever.

He builds up every shield he can, takes a step back from himself because he’s going to overflow, and it’s going to reach Bruce, and maybe even Dick and Babs and Tim, and they don’t need to see him like this.

But while his walls are up, on the inside, his blood is boiling. Everything in him rages.

 _She didn’t deserve that_ something in him screams

 _and he didn’t deserve to walk free_.

He counts his breaths and builds up his shields. His robin suit is on before he’s even sure he’s moving, and then he leaves the mansion.

Felipe Garzonas is standing on his balcony with a glass of liquor, completely content and going on his day as if a woman didn’t just kill herself because of him.

_He doesn’t even care_

He thinks.

_Causing pain is the point for him, and he’s not going to change as long as he gets away scott free, because he likes it_

_He’s unforgivable_

Jason drops onto his balcony without warning. His fingers are shaking, but his walls are solidly up, and he manages a vicious smile.

“Felipe,” he says.

He jumps off the railing and advances on the paling man.

“Why don’t you and I have a little talk?”

***

They don’t talk much. Jason does break a bone, though.

***

Garzonas begged and cried for mercy, but Jason wasn’t feeling very merciful. He tried to get away, to pull himself up the railing, anywhere to get away. Then he slipped. Jason saw it happen, as if in slow motion, and tried to grab him, but he was too late.

“Robin! What happened?” Batman shouts, landing on the balcony behind him.

Jason is looking down, gazing after the man. He meets Batman’s gaze, then looks away. He hadn’t meant it, but… he isn’t sorry.

“Robin, did Felipe fall,” Batman asks, and it’s all harsh gravel. His mark is ice. “Or was he pushed.”

_Oh_

Something inside Jason cracks.

His body feels cold, all the way down.

Bruce felt like he had to ask.

_Bruce doesn’t trust him._

He turns to leave. “I must've spooked him.” He did more than that. “He fell.”

***

He cries when he gets back to his room.

Bruce doesn’t trust him.

Jason doesn’t want to be kicked out. He can’t bear looking into Bruce’s eyes and being told to leave, losing the best thing in his life just like that. But Bruce doesn’t trust him. Bruce thinks he killed someone. Bruce _had to ask_.

Bruce is going to kick him out.

Bruce is going to kick him out, and Jason can’t stick around, can’t handle feeling the steady presence of his dad in their bond turn into something distant and cold because he thinks Jason is a murderer. He needs to get away before that happens.

Behind his closet, there’s an old, battered backpack. He can’t bear to take anything from here with him, to take their things and prove them - prove Bruce - right, that he’s only a thieving street rat with no morals. So he leaves everything as it is, all the things they bought him, right where they belong. The backpack was his when he came here, and the food inside… it was offered, back when he was still stashing. His old hoodie, too small for his current frame, and a few bills he put aside from his allowances, join the food in the backpack.

He’s weak, so he takes his newer hoodie with him, too.

He leaves out the window.

***

He calls Dick.

“Dick?” His voice cracks on that single word.

“Jason? Jason, what happened? What did you do?”

His throat goes dry, and he hangs up. Dick doesn’t trust him either.

***

The woman down the hallway from his old flat used to babysit him, sometimes. She was a working girl with a bad lot in life, who always had a smile to spare for Jason even back then. She’s been better off, since Batman and Robin took out a trafficking ring and jailed her old pimp in the process.

Apparently she held on to whatever things were scavenged from his old flat once Willis bit the dust, and she’s happy to hand him the box when he shows up at her door, lost and crying and hoping for a couch to crash on.

***

It doesn’t say Catherine Todd.

***

He’d never had a soulbond with either of his parents. Whatever he’s had with Bruce was surely ashes in the wind by now. Maybe…

Maybe he can have that with his birth mom.

***

Sheila Haywood is being threatened by the Joker.

 _His Mom_ is being threatened by the joker.

He can protect her.

***

Everything hurts so much, Jason can’t even muster the strength to cry. His heart hurts more than anything, though. Four parents in his life, and yet...

And yet.

Maybe Jason just wasn’t made to be loved.

The Joker ties Shiela down, too, snaps some sassy remark over his shoulder, but Jason isn’t hearing him. His aching heart beats a panicked rhythm. No. He can’t leave her - she can’t die here, too.

The bomb is ticking down and the door _won’t open_. He can’t - he can protect her. Maybe, at least she can walk out of here.

_Tick_

_Tick_

_Tick_

He can keep his mom, at least, safe. She’s right there, body prone, but if he covers her with his own body - he isn’t walking out of here alive, Jason knows that. He crawls there on shifting bones and bleeding wounds and there’s seconds left but he covers her body with his own.

Bruce told him to wait. Bruce is coming for Jason, he’s here in Ethiopia just for Jason’s sake. But Bruce hadn’t trusted him before, and Jason wanted to trust his mom, and now he’s dying. 

_Tick_

_Tick_

_Tick_

Bruce is coming, but he won’t be in time. That’s ok. He tried. He’s so close, Jason can feel the ice cold in his shoulder - like shards of jagged icicles jammed into his skin. This one he can name. Terror.

Bruce won’t make it, but it’s ok. He’s here. Jason can die knowing that much.

**Author's Note:**

> Please visit my [Tumblr](https://i-preen-for-oikawa.tumblr.com/) and scream at me about these kids whom I love!
> 
> Also, chat with me about the choices and changes I'm making here. I'm trying to reason through every change I make from canon, but I don't know that much about some canon things to be sure what I'm doing, so I'm open to discussion! I'm playing completely loose with the timeline, for example, because I have no clue when things happened compared to each other.


End file.
